Sirenia – The Enigma Of Life

Sirenia sounds like a mixture of gothic metal and rock with classical influences, in addition to some elements from more extreme metal genres. Their sound has a solid base in the powerful drums and bass supported by massive rhythm guitars, dressed with atmospheric keyboards and spiced with melancholic violins and 12-string guitars. The vocal styles are diverse and consist of female vocals, choirs, growls, screams, clean male vocals, whispers and samples. The songs are very intense and the atmosphere changes frequently. The lyrics are based on reflections on life, death, love, hate, paranoia, anxiety and mental decline in general.

The band has been through some line-up changes over the years, but has now settled with a very strong line-up. In addition to Morten performing guitars and vocals the band consists of Ailyn: female vocals, Jonathan A. Perez: drums and Michael S. Krumins: guitars.

Sirenia’s new album, “The Enigma Of Life” follows a well known pattern that other female fronted bands of the same sub genre have also followed in the past. Epica, Within Temptation, Leave’s Eyes are some examples, even guitarist’s first band, Tristania, is a good example. Yet, as time goes by and as the music industry is more and more interested on this type of music,in a slowed down version, all these bands seem to lose their spirit in many ways. Unfortunately, this happens with Sirenia on this occasion, the “powerful drums” and “massive rhythm guitars” that I forementioned, are gone leaving the album flat and without any real inspiration.

This album is a piece of work that appeals to a very certain audience that will surely give some attention to this album. The rest of us will forget this one very soon.